


Unmade

by Lusa_chi



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:40:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29577642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lusa_chi/pseuds/Lusa_chi
Summary: Warning: this is pure whimsy.“I am…Iron man.”Tony Stark lived a very satisfying, if not a very long life. He was born with every opportunity that being the son of a millionaire gave him. Had the best education, everything money could give him, a loyal best friend, and even obtained the love of his life. In the eyes of most, he was a hero and a martyr.The last man standing against a tyrant stronger than the gods themselves and he came out on top.He made a Titan bleed.Tony Stark made sure that the world he left his daughter in was a peaceful one, if not entirely perfect. One that she would be happy in even without him. Not immediately, of course, but soon enough, his Pepper, FRIDAY and VERONICA, and the Avengers, will fill the space he was leaving behind.He knew all that and thought he died without any regrets.
Relationships: Howard Stark/Maria Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	1. 1.1

Yet here he is, bitter and resentful as he watched the world celebrated its first day after being freed from the oppressive dictator that is Thanos. A day after _his_ death.

There was mourning, of course, after FRIDAY had dissembled his armor and Rhodey carried his lifeless body to the lakeside home he shared with Pepper and Morgan. His best friend settled him inside a titanium coffin reinforced with titanium. Call him vain but that was what Pepper and he settled on, as the last argument before he went off to sacrifice himself. That was his last effort at gaining a smile from Pepper, who said her goodbyes with tears. Then there was Morgan, his precious Morgan, who wanted to see her father for one last time and all he could muster up was the promise of a new world.

The funeral, of course, was majestic and a moment of silence was held for him.

Morgan and Peter cried. Pepper’s eyes misted even as she held onto their shared treasures, her back straight as she was now facing a world alone without him.

Rhodey saluted him, eyes red and jaded, before burying his tears. In the back were soldiers, soldiers he had helped, families of those he had brought back.

 _“You miss them.”_ Tony Stark jerked as if electrified as he stared at the source of the voice beside him.

Of course he missed them. They were his family, the only ones he could not lose. Yet here he was, never able to touch, to speak, to see them again.

_“How are you here?”_

_“I’m a Master of the Mystic Arts.”_ Strange murmured as he raised an eyebrow at him. His image was translucent, and he lacked the red cape that always accompanied him. _“Astral projection is one of the many arts taught at Kamar-Taj. This is a bit more than that, but not beyond the means of a Master who had time and resources.”_

 _“I’m impressed,” Tony deadpanned. “So, what are you doing here?”_ he gestured at his corpse within its metal coffin. His own face staring at him, dead yet appearing as if he was only sleeping thanks to whoever prepared his corpse for the funeral. _“Can you bring me back or something? You would not be here unless there was something you needed.”_

Strange shrugged. _“Necromancy is one of the forbidden arts.”_

 _“And?”_ Hope sprung in his chest. The sorcerer did not say that bringing him back was impossible.

 _“What I_ can _offer you is a second chance.”_ Strange continued, frowning as the Captain, in a dark suit and dark tie, phased through his astral projection as the he stepped forward alongside Rhodey, Happy, and Thor. Together, the four lowered his body into the ground.

 _“Out of the fourteen million realities,”_ and some, _“there are worlds that I looked into where someone made a different choice and changed how events came to be. There were a few where_ you _either died or was never born when Howard Stark never met Maria_ _Carbonell or simply decide to not marry._ _There was even a few worlds where you made very different choices in life. There, Iron Man did not exist.”_

Tony could not resist as he asked. _“Was I ever evil? Or went bad?”_

Strange gave him a dry look. _“No.”_

Tony knew he was lying. Everyone had good and bad in them, even himself. Hell, he was more likely than any of the Avengers to go sideways. His origin story was practically the perfect birth of a villain if he did not have a family to come home to. If he did not have Rhodey, or Pepper, or JARVIS. Or even Harley and Peter, who kept him sane when he was at his lowest, there were a few choices he would have made differently.

 _“And then there were worlds where Thanos did not exist_.”

_“Oh?”_

_“Only one, when Thanos’ mother decided that there was no point in bringing into this world another child. Titan was dying and there was no point. She was abandoned by her husband to die in a desolate land.”_

_“Why are you telling me this, Stranger Danger?”_

The Master of Mystic Arts gave him a sardonic look as they floated above the crowd that has begun to dispersed. A sea of black people scattering slowly, leaving only his family behind. Tony supposed the funeral was over.

 _“Because I’m giving you a chance to_ live _once more.”_ He replied. _“You were the Key to our world’s salvation. Your mind, your kindness, your heart, but that does not mean I wanted you dead. That was not the reason why I saved you on Titan…_

 _…This world no longer needs you, but there are many that does. There are many worlds out there were the outcomes are different if they had their own Iron Man, their own Tony Stark to help them,”_ Strange held out a gloved hand.

He stared at the offered hand. His daughter needed him, he thought, and refuted the argument when Pepper led her away from his grave. His daughter would always have Pepper there, and Rhodey, and Happy. There was nothing keeping him here.

Anthony Edward Stark took the hand as Strange opened a portal with another hand.

Sparkles and light flashed as the portal formed, edges gleaming with purple light that seemed a bit ominous. It opened up to a clearing surrounded by dark green pine trees covered in snow, with dried sticks and pine needles covering the rocky earth. It was too clean to be wild lands and the lack of trash and animal feces indicated it was at least owned.

 _“Come.”_ The Sorcerer commanded.

 _“I have a bad feeling about this,”_ Tony muttered as he followed the floating sorcerer through the trees. This landscape was too familiar for him to let go this feeling of dread, yet he could not place where this was in his memories.

Through the trees they arrived at the back of a mansion, standing tall and dark against a cloudy night.

 _“Fuck you.”_ Tony growled, yanking his hand away.

The sorcerer gave him an unimpressed look.

This was the Stark manor in upstate New York. His childhood home before his parents was killed and he had escaped to the West Coast, seeking warm bodies and expensive drugs to keep himself from following his parents. Their death, the fact that he could not save them and was not there to even plan out their funeral was his first, and perhaps greatest regret as an adult.

Through the kitchen windows on the ground floor, he could see a tall man perhaps in his fifties, with graying temples and warm blue eyes. His father in everything but name, puttering about as he put together a pot of tea and small sandwiches. Not unlike those he had left beside his pillows whenever he gets up in the morning after a night of partying, which happened frequently after he returned home from his MIT graduation.

Back in those days, Tony spent every minute outside of his lab doing everything he could possibly do to disappoint Howard Stark. Partying, fucking, and doing God-knows-what to besmirch the Stark name, and he would rub it in the man’s face too.

 _“This way,”_ Strange murmured and as if drawn by his magic, he followed the man through the mansion up to the second-floor bedroom. The largest one at the end of the West Wing, farthest he could get away from his father and was large enough to hold a small version of his laboratory at MIT. There, they found, well, _him_. A six-teen-year-old him, face down and lying in his own vomit, with at least six or eight bottle of vodka, plus rum and tequila. His bed was at least three meters away and the doors were locked.

It was obvious how _this Tony Stark_ died. Not shocking, after seeing _his own_ corpse in a coffin. To be honest, Tony himself wondered more than a few times how he did not succeed in killing himself sooner and making it to the ripe age of fifty before he had to sacrifice himself to save humanity. 

But could not Strange find a better universe for him? Maybe one without Howard Stark?

As if reading his mind, Stranger Danger quirked a sardonic smile as he turned to face him. _“This one was one of the few worlds where your death was peaceful enough, and your body whole and strong enough for a new soul to inhabit.”_ Does this mean most of his deaths were violent?

The sorcerer raised a hand to his temple. _“Now, this won’t hurt at all.”_


	2. 1.2

The next thing he felt was fingers in his mouth pulling out chunks of vomit as his stomach heaved.

Awful was not enough of a term to describe the taste in his mouth. His head was spinning, his stomach frankly felt horrible, not to mention that the body felt too small for him. Not small as in size, but it was as if his feelings, his thoughts, everything that was him was shoved into a container that was unable to expand. His brain felt too small, too young, not enough neurons have developed to contain the amount of knowledge he has gained over a lifetime.

He felt as if he was going to explode out of his skin.

“J-Jarvis?” he slurred, mouth barely obeying the commands he sends it.

“Yeah Tony, it’s me.” He felt himself being pulled upward then thrown over a shoulders. The world spun and he vomited some more in his mouth as his stomach protested the rough treatment. “What if it was Maria that found you like this? You would break her heart like this?”

The world spun again as he was laid into a bathtub. Cold water sprinkled down from above of more force than necessary over his face. Home wracked his body has he crawled over the side of the bathtub and emptied some more of a stomach contents. The sensation of alcohol poisoning was not new to him, but it has been at least a decade since the last time he was this smashed. It was right after vision has been created, when the team blamed him for everything that happened. and he did not have the heart to refute the accusations.

Once his daughter was born, all alcohol was banned from the new Stark Manor, the home Pepper and he created for Morgan.

“Where’s Mum?” he mumbled.

“At the Thanksgiving Company celebration with your father in town. A good thing she is not here to witness this.”

Which means she was _alive_ and at least not publicly estranged from his father. However, he was home and had access to Howard’s alcohol cabinet, which puts him at least older than fourteen but no older than seventeen, the year when his parents was murdered by HYDRA. Christ, he was so _young_.

“I’ll be back, and those clothes has better be off when I am,” Edwin Jarvis declared.

The shadow of his Butler disappeared, leaving him alone with his own thoughts and the water beating down on him. At least the water was warm now, comforting even as his thoughts run wild with unbidden hope at the possibility of saving his parents good. Could he actually do this? Save his parents? Save everyone?

Fingers gripping the bathtub tightened. _Obie_.

He could not find it in his own heart to wonder when everything went wrong? When did Uncle Obi became an enemy rather than his father's best friend? Was he ever involved in Hydra?

And S.H.I.E.L.D. The organization that his father helped created also helped to Bury his death, made him believe not his father's alcoholism killed both of his parents.

Jarvis quickly returned and helped him out of the wet clothes, all the while murmuring disapproval into his ears. Yes, his butler did not look at all happy to strip him out of his soiled clothing and into new ones, before shoving a toothbrush into his limp hands. At least, it was more than his father has ever shown him and this man has also done more for him anyone alive. Hell, the only reason he made it to adulthood was Edwin Jarvis. the possibility that Jarvis can accompany him into the future excites him. Pepper have always said that he needed someone to watch his back.

With his responsibilities to the military, Rhodey could not be there for him all the time and neither of them trusted the Avengers, not after they had left him for dead in the cold mountains of Siberia.

Perhaps this time, he could truly make a body for J.A.R.V.I.S. rather than creating Vision. After all, he did not need the mind stone in order to create his firstborn’s body, just the technology to create the Cradle. Unfortunately, biology was not his strong suit and it took him years to master biotechnology. He needed A.I.M. to stabilize the vibranium body in order to mimic flesh and blood. He needed Dr. Helen Cho.

For now, he would make do with Jarvis while he worked on his predecessor's code.

Once the vomit was cleaned off and Jarvis deemed him presentable, he wrapped Tony up in a fluffy towel and sent him to a guest bedroom while the maids cleaned off the sheets. He ushered him into bed.

“Sleep.” Jarvis commanded imperiously.

Tony sent him a blurry smile. “Thank Jarvis, I don’t know what I would have done without you.” Probably not make it to adulthood. He swallowed a lump in his throat as Jarvis tucked his covers in. “And I’m sorry.” For having you see me like this. For having to save me. For everything he put him through.

The apology gave Jarvis a pause. “You’re forgiven, though don’t mistake that I will not be reporting this to Ms. Maria.” After a pause, he shook his head and turned off the bedside lamp. “There’s no excuse to being a poor father, but your father…he’s under a lot of pressure.”

Tony used the shadows to hide his derision. “Yeah, I know.” He replied softly. His father did not deserve Jarvis’ loyalty, not when the only thing he seemed to care about was his own success…his legacy. Putting all his efforts into his company and perfecting the Super Soldier Serum. It was his damned _legacy_ that killed himself and his wife, Tony’s mother. He refused to let that happen again. 

Jarvis sighed softly, as if knowing that those words did not convince him, before ruffling his hair and retreating from the bedroom, turning out of the lights, and washing the room in darkness.

And in the darkness, Tony Stark fell asleep as he planned and plotted.

So many things to do and so little time to do it. 


End file.
